Table of Contents

Acute and Critical Care (Acute Crit Care, ACC) is the official scientific journal of the Korean Society of Critical Care Medicine (KSCCM), on the purpose of publishing research and therapeutic achievement in the field of critical care medicine. ACC is published quarterly at the last day of February, May, August, and November. Manuscripts for submission to ACC should be written according to the following instructions for authors. Editorial Board will make the final decision on an approval for the publication of submitted manuscripts and the publication order of accepted manuscripts. Editorial Board reviews ethics, rationality, originality, and scientific significance in accepting submitted manuscripts, and can request any further corrections, revisions, and deletions of the article if necessary. ACC follows the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, available at: http://www.icmje.org/, if otherwise not described below.

Statement of Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

Any investigations involving humans and animals should be approved by the Institutional Review Board and Animal Care Committee, respectively, of the institution where the study took place. ACC will not consider any studies involving humans or animals without the appropriate approval. Informed consent should be obtained, unless waived by the institutional review board, from patients who participated in clinical investigations. Human subjects should not be identifiable, such that patients' names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth, or other protected healthcare information should not be disclosed. If experiments involve animals, the research should be based on national or institutional guidelines for animal care and use. Original articles submitted to ACC that address any investigation involving humans and animals should include a description about whether the study was conducted under an approval by the institutional review board (with or without patient informed consent) and animal care committee, respectively, of the institution where the study was conducted. ACC can request an approval by the institutional review board or animal care committee for the other types of articles when necessary. The content of each article is the responsibility of the authors and not of ACC.

Conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (bias) his or her actions (such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). These relationships vary from being negligible to having great potential for influencing judgment. Not all relationships represent true conflict of interest. On the other hand, the potential for conflict of interest can exist regardless of whether an individual believes that the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment. Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, and paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion (http://www.icmje.org/conflicts-of-interest/). If there are any conflicts of interest, authors should disclose them in the manuscript. The conflicts of interest may occur during research process; however, important point is the disclosure itself. If there is a disclosure, editors, reviewers, and reader can approach the manuscripts after understanding the situation where the research work was processed.

Originality and Duplicate Publication

Manuscripts under review or published by other journals will not be accepted for publication in ACC, and articles published in this journal are not allowed to be reproduced in whole or in part in any type of publication without permission of the Editorial Board. Figures and tables can be used freely if original source is verified according to Creative Commons Non-Commercial License. It is mandatory for all authors to resolve any copyright issues when citing a figure or table from a different journal that is not open access. Regarding duplicate publication, plagiarism, and other problems related to publication ethics, "Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals" (http://kamje.or.kr/publishing_ethics.html) should be followed.

Secondary Publication

It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the condition of secondary publication of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals by International Committee of Medical Journal Editors', available from: http://www.icmje.org/ as followings:

Certain types of articles, such as guidelines produced by governmental agencies and professional organizations, may need to reach the widest possible audience. In such instances, editors sometimes deliberately publish material that is also being published in other journals, with the agreement of the authors and the editors of those journals. Secondary publication for various other reasons, in the same or another language, especially in other countries, is justifiable and can be beneficial provided that the following conditions are met. The authors have received approval from the editors of both journals (the editor concerned with secondary publication must have a photocopy, reprint, or manuscript of the primary version). The priority of the primary publication is respected by a publication interval of at least 1 week (unless specifically negotiated otherwise by both editors).

The paper for secondary publication is intended for a different group of readers; an abbreviated version could be sufficient. The secondary version faithfully reflects the data and interpretations of the primary version. The footnote on the title page of the secondary version informs readers, peers, and documenting agencies that the paper has been published in whole or in part and states the primary reference. A suitable footnote might read: “This article is based on a study first reported in the [title of journal, with full reference].”

Process to Manage the Research and Publication Misconduct

When the Journal faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as redundant (duplicate) publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflict of interest, ethical problem with a submitted manuscript, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and etc., The resolving process will be followed by flowchart provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). The discussion and decision on the suspected cases are done by Editorial Board.

Editorial Responsibilities

Editorial board will continuously work for monitoring/safeguarding publication ethics: guidelines for retracting articles; maintenance of the integrity of the academic record; preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standard; publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed; no plagiarism, no fraudulent data. Editors are always keeping following responsibilities: responsibility and authority to rejected/ accept article; no conflict of interest respect to articles they reject/ accept; acceptance of a paper when reasonably certain; promoting publication of correction or retraction when errors are found; preservation of anonymity of reviewers.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Manuscripts should be written in English. Medical terminology should be written based on the most recent edition of Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary.

1. General Principles

1) Word processors and format of manuscript
Manuscripts should be submitted in the file format of Microsoft Word 2003 or higher. Manuscripts should be typed on A4 size, double-spaced, using font size of 12 point with margins of 2 cm on each side and 3 cm for the upper and lower ends. Leave double space between the lines.

2) Abbreviation of terminology
Abbreviations should be avoided as much as possible. One word should not be expressed as abbreviation and more than two words can be expressed. The full term for which abbreviation stands should be used at its first occurrence in the text. Abbreviations should not be in the title. Common abbreviations, however, may be used, such as DNA.

4) Machine and equipment
When the use of reagents or devices is reported in the text, the name of manufacturer, city, state, and country should be indicated.

5) Statistics
Statistical methods must be described and the program used for data analysis, and its source, should be stated.

6) Arrangement of manuscript
The article should be organized in the order of Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), Authors’ contributions, Conflict of Interest, Funding, Acknowledgments, References, Table, Figure, and Figure Legends.
Each new section’s title should begin on a new page. Number pages consecutively, beginning with the abstract page. Page numbers should be placed at the middle of the bottom of page.

7) Reporting guidelines for specific study designs
Research reports frequently omit important information. As such, reporting guidelines have been developed for a number of study designs that some journals may ask authors to follow. Authors are encouraged to also consult the reporting guidelines relevant to their specific research design. A good source of reporting guidelines is the EQUATOR Network (http://www.equator-network.org/home/) and the United States National Institutes of Health/ National Library of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/research_report_guide.html).

2. Organization of Manuscript – Original Article

1) Title page

Title: Title should be concise and precise. The first letters of noun, adjective, verb, adverb in English title should be capital. The title should use generic drug names, not brand names.

Authors and affiliations: The names of the authors contain the first name, middle name, and last name for each author. If the author is affiliated with multiple departments, mark footnotes by the name. If authors are affiliated with multiple departments and hospitals, affiliations should be arranged in the order of authors and assorted with number.

Running head: A running head of no more than 50 characters including letters and spaces in English. If inappropriate, the editorial board may revise it.

2) Abstract

All manuscripts should contain a structured abstract. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words in length. It must have following headings: Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Quotation of references is not available in the abstract. A list of keywords, with a maximum of 6 items, should be included at the end of the abstract in alphabetical order and should be written in small alphabetic letters. Each key words should be separated by a semicolon (;). The authors should use terms from the MeSH.
Ex) Key Words: carbon dioxide; cerebral vessels; oxygen; spinal analgesia
Ex) Key Words: α2-adrenoceptor agonist; GABA; oxygen

3) Key Messages

A list of 2 or 3 key messages is required. This provides a quick structured synopsis of the findings of your manuscript, following important findings and its meaning. Limit this section to 50-100 words or less.

4) Introduction

Introduction should address the purpose of the article concisely and include background reports that are relevant to the purpose of the paper.

5) Materials and Methods

When reporting experiments with human or animal subjects, the authors should indicate whether they received approval from the IRB for the study, and agreement from the patients. When reporting experiments with animal subjects, the authors should indicate whether the handling of the animals was supervised by Institutional Board for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Sufficient details need to be addressed in the methodology section of an experimental study so that it can be further replicated by others. Ensure correct use of the terms sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identity, psychosocial or cultural factors), and, unless inappropriate, report the sex and/or gender of study participants, the sex of animals or cells, and describe the methods used to determine sex and gender. If the study was done involving an exclusive population, for example in only one sex, authors should justify why, except in obvious cases (e.g., prostate cancer). Authors should define how they determined race or ethnicity and justify their relevance.

6) Results

Results should be presented in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat all of the data in the tables or illustrations in the text; emphasize or summarize only the most important observations.

7) Discussion

Discussion should be described to emphasize the new and important aspects of the study, including the conclusions. Do not repeat the results in detail or other information that is given in Introduction or Results section. Describe the conclusions according to the purpose of the study but avoid unqualified statements that are not adequately supported by the data. Conclusions may be stated briefly in the last paragraph of Discussion section.

8) ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID)

All authors are recommended to provide an ORCID. To obtain an ORCID, authors should register in the ORCID web site: https://orcid.org. Registration is free to every researcher in the world.

9) Conflict of Interest

If there are any conflicts of interest, authors should disclose them in the manuscript. If there is a disclosure, editors, reviewers, and reader can approach the manuscript after understanding the situation and the background of the completed research. If there are no any conflicts of interest, authors should describe following sentence. “No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported”.

10) Funding

Funding to the research should be provided here. Providing a FundRef ID is recommended including the name of the funding agency, country and if available, the number of the grant provided by the funding agency. If the funding agency does not have a FundRef ID, please ask that agency to contact the FundRef registry (e-mail: fundref.registry@crossref.org). Additional detailed policy of FundRef description can be available at http://www.crossref.org/fundref/.

11) Acknowledgments

Persons or institutes who contributed to the papers but not enough to be co-authors may be introduced at the end (between Discussion and References). Financial support, including foundations, institutions, pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, private companies, or intramural departmental sources, or any other support should be described.

12) Authors’ contributions

What authors have done for the study should be described in this section. To qualify for authorship, all contributors must meet at least one of the seven core contributions by CRediT (conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation), as well as at least one of the writing contributions (original draft preparation, review and editing). Authors may also satisfy the other remaining contributions; however, these alone will not qualify them for authorship. Contributions will be published with the final article, and they should accurately reflect contributions to the work. The submitting author is responsible for completing this information at submission, and it is expected that all authors will have reviewed, discussed, and agreed to their individual contributions ahead of this time. The information concerning sources of author contributions should be included in this section at submitting the final version of manuscript (at the first submission, this information should be included in title page).

13) References

References should be obviously related to documents and cited in sequential order in the text. The description of the Reference section is provided below. The References follow the NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/citingmedicine) if not mentioned below.
References should be identified in text by full-size Arabic numerals on the line and in square brackets [ ]. All of the references should be stated in English, including author, title, name of journal, etc. If necessary, the reviewers and the Editorial Board may request original documents of the references. In the Reference section, journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in the list of journals indexed in the NLM Journal Catalog (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals). For journal titles not listed in the Catalog, they should follow the ISO abbreviation as described in “ISO 4:1997 Information and documentation--Rules for the abbreviation of title words and titles of publications” (http://www.iso.org/iso/home/store/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=3569).
Up to six authors can be listed. If more than 6 authors are listed, only list the first 6 authors with ‘et al’. Provide the start and end page numbers of the cited reference.

14) Table

Each table should be typed or printed on a separate sheet of paper consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text. Supply a brief title on the top of the table. Title of the table start as “Table 1”. Footnotes should be provided consecutively in order of the informations, statistics and abbreviations. Footnoted information should be referenced using superscript, small letters (ex; a, b) in alphabetical order.

15) Figures and Illustrations

ACC publishes in full color, and encourages authors to use color to increase the clarity of figures. Authors must submit figures and illustrations on electronic files. Images must be provided as TIFF files. JPEG is also acceptable when the original format is JPEG. Each figure must be good quality higher than 300 dpi resolution with good contrast and sharpness. The figures must be sized to 4 inches. If possible, submit the original file without any modification.
Submit files of figures and photographs separately from the text of the paper. Number figures as “Figure Arabic numeral” in the order of their citation (ex. Figure 1). If figure is divided into more than two, mark each figure with Arabic numeral and capital alphabet (Ex. Figure 1A, Figure 1B). Authors should submit line drawings in black and white. Figures should be explained briefly in the titles. An individual should not be recognizable in the photographs or X-ray films and is provided at the time of submission. Radiographic prints must have arrows for clarity if applicable. Pathological samples should be pictured with a measuring stick.

16) Legends of Figures and Illustrations

All the figures and photos should be described in the text separately. The description order is the same as in the footnotes in tables and should be in recognizable sentences. In microscopic pictures, staining methods and magnification ratio should be indicated.

3. Organization of Case Reports

Case reports describe unique and instructive cases that make an important teaching point or scientific observation, novel techniques, use of new equipment, or new information on diseases that are of importance to critical care field. The length of the text excluding references, tables, and figures should not exceed 1,500 words.

Cover page : Same as original article.

Abstract : Should unstructured and should not exceed 200 words.

Introduction : Should not be separately divided. Briefly describe the case and background without a title.

Case report : Describe only the clinical statement that is directly related to critical care.

Discussion : Briefly discuss the case, and state conclusions at the end of the case. Do not structure the conclusion section separately.

References : Do not exceed 10 references.

Tables and figures : Proportional to clinical and experimental studies.

4. Organization of Reviews

Editorial Board request review articles of particular title and text. Author can describe text not itemized. Review articles should include unstructured abstracts equal to or less than 250 words in English. Key words should follow ordinary process. The length of the text excluding references, tables, and figures should not exceed 5,000 words.

5. Organization of Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor should include brief constructive comments that concern a published article, or a short, free-standing opinion or a short interesting case. Letters to the Editor should be submitted no more than 6 months after the paper has been published. Body text should not exceed 1,000 words and should have less than 5 references. Letters may be edited by the Editorial Board and if necessary, responses of the author of the subject paper may be provided. The responses should have same format of Letters to Editor.

6. Images in Critical Care

Images section must be of high scientific quality and of value as well as providing didactic and self-explanatory lessons. They must be unique and adhere to ethical standards with patient/ relative approval when appropriate, protection of patient identity and privacy.
The total text should not exceed 200 words. A maximum of five authors is permitted. Up to 5 references are allowed. No abstract is required.
The legend to the image should concisely present relevant clinical information, including a short description of the patient’s history, relevant physical and laboratory findings, clinical course, response to treatment (if any), and condition at last follow-up. All labeled structures in the image should be described and explained in the legend.

7. Other Publication Types

Other publication types such as guideline, brief report, history article may be accepted. Recommended format can be discussed with Editorial Board.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

1. Submission Process

Authors are requested to submit their papers electronically by using the online manuscript submission system, available at: http://submit.accjournal.org/. Under this online system, only corresponding authors and first authors can submit the manuscript. All process of reviewing and editing will be done through this system.

Authors and reviewers may check the progress of reviews and related questions/answers on this system. Every progress in reviews is also informed to corresponding authors.

Upon submission of a manuscript, authors should send a statement of copyright release and author agreement which must be signed by all authors by scanned file to the Editorial Office.

A proof by authors should be submitted within 1 week of the request.

During submission process, the authors ORCIDs will be requested. The corresponding author’s ORCIDs is mandatory.

2. Article Processing Charge

There are no author submission fees. All cost for the submission process is supported by the Publisher.

PEER REVIEW AND PUBLICATION PROCESS

1. Screening after Submission

Screening process will conducted after submission. If the manuscript does not fit the aims and scope of the Journal or does not adhere to the Instructions to authors, it may be returned to the author immediately after receipt and without a review.

Before reviewing, all submitted manuscripts are inspected by Similarity Check powered by iThenticate (https://www.crossref.org/services/similarity-check/), a plagiarism-screening tool. If a too high a degree of similarity score is found, the Editorial Board will do a more profound content screening.

The criterion for similarity rate for further screening is usually 15%; however, the excess amount of similarity in specific sentences may be also checked in every manuscript. The settings for Similarity Check screening are as follows: It excludes quotes, bibliography, small matches of 6 words, small sources of 1%, and the Methods section.

2. Peer Review Process

Submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by 2 or more experts in the corresponding field. The Editorial Board may request authors to revise the manuscripts according to the reviewer’s opinion. After revising the manuscript, the author should upload the revised files with a reply to each item of the reviewer’s opinion. The revised part should be marked as red font with underline.

The author’s revisions should be completed within 30 days after the request. If it is not received by the due date, the Editorial Board will not consider it for publication again.

The manuscript review process can be finished the second review. If further revision is requested, the Editorial Board may consider it.

The Editorial Board may request authors to correct English to reach a certain standard and authors should accept the request.

The Editorial Board will make a final decision on the approval of the submitted manuscript for publication and can request any further corrections, revisions, and deletions of the article text if necessary. Statistical editing is also performed if the data requires professional statistical review by a statistician.

3. Process after Acceptance

If the manuscript is finally accepted, the proofreading will be sent to the corresponding author after professional manuscript editing and/or English proofreading. Proofreading should be performed again for any misspellings or errors by the authors.
Before final proofreading, the manuscript may appear at the journal homepage as an epub ahead of print with a unique DOI number for rapid communication. The epub ehead of print version will be replaced by the replacement XML file and a final PDF.

4. Fee for Publication and Reprints

There is no article processing charge but an additional fee for reprints or color prints will be charged to authors. However, this policy could be changed in the future.

5. Copyright and Open access

Copyrights ownership is to be transferred to the KSCCM. The authors should submit “Authorship Responsibility and License Agreement Form” at the time of manuscript submission. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.